1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a text input auto completion method and apparatus for automatically completing text input using speech recognition, and more particularly, to a method and an apparatus for automatically completing text input using a text input device such as a keypad and speech recognition in a device requiring a text input function.
2. Description of the Related Art
In order to use a short message service (SMS) in conventional mobile terminals or to input schedules in personal digital assistants (PDAs), text to be input should be input in units of letters using a keypad installed in the mobile terminal or a screen keyboard realized in the PDA. In portable mobile personal computers (PCs) such as ultra-mobile personal computers (UMPCs), it is easy to surf the web, send e-mails, and generate documents as in desktop PCs, and thus, of the requirement for inputting letters is increasing. Here, text includes words and sentences that are larger units than syllables, and hereinafter, the text will be referred to as a piece of writing.
In this text input method using direct input, letters can be input exactly; however, it takes a lot of time to input the text because the text must be input letter-by-letter, and it is inconvenient because all of the text must be directly input. In particular, portable devices such as mobile terminals, PDAs, and UMPCs are small, and thus, it is very inconvenient to input letters using a keypad or keyboard.
On the other hand, besides the direct input method using a keypad or keyboard, a speech recognition method can be used, in which text can be input by recognizing the voice of a user. Speech recognition technology is continuously developing, and text corresponding to the speech can be input to a device by recognizing the speech of the user using various language models, without directly inputting the text.
However, regardless of the above convenience, a recognition rate of continuous speech such as dictation is lowered, and thus, the performance of speech recognition is not good enough to be used in an e-mail sending service or SMS. If continuous speech is recognized by speech recognition technology, the recognized speech must be repeatedly corrected due to the low recognition rate, and thus, it is inconvenient to input text in a portable device requiring fast input performance. In addition, in conventional speech recognition technology, speech is recognized first, and then, the recognized sentence must be identified to be input or the recognition of the speech must be repeated. Therefore, the inputting operation and the speech recognition are separately performed, and thus, it is impossible to input the text naturally.
Recently, digital TVs such as Internet protocol TVs (IPTVs) have been commercialized, and thus, these TVs can be connected to the Internet, and requirements of various text input systems are being increased. In particular, unlike conventional TVs, IPTVs can connect to web pages through the Internet, and text can be input as in PCs. In order to input text into a TV, a keypad mounted on a conventional remote controller can be used or a screen keyboard realized on a screen of the TV can be used. However, the above methods also have the same disadvantages and inconveniences as the direct text inputting method described above.